Mike's Dogs

This project was an important one, a lot more at stake than anything else I had done yet. My neighbor is a police officer with the K-9 unit, his dog Veteran retired after many years on the job. Veteran traded in his badge for house slippers and spent the rest of his time living the easy life. Mike also had another dog named Brooks, I believe that they both passed fairly close to each other. I was honored when he came to me to make 2 special boxes for their ashes to rest in.

The first step was to find the perfect wood and I think I was able to do that with with Walnut and a very nice piece of Maple. The wood was re-sawed down to a little less than 1/2" thick then I cut all the sides, tops and bottoms out. Now it was time to cut the dovetails.

You'll notice that there are no openings on the box, so I had to assemble, glue, and finish with the dogs inside. In between finish sanding and finish I sent the boxes off to get laser engraved after which I put a few coats of Danish oil on them.